Tech Link Newsletter

April 2009

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Innovation Driving Mobile & Wireless. Trends and Opportunities

News of innovation in the Mobile & Wireless world just keep coming. Every day we hear of new smartphones, the introduction of wireless virtual reality, intelligent body networks, mobile lifestyle services, higher data throughputs, remote monitoring, and social networking to name a few.

These innovations are rapidly spread by over 3 billion mobile phone users, and by the supporting devices/infrastructure, applications and services that the Telecom, Media & Technology industries provide.
What should we expect to see coming to this marketplace in the near future? Here are some key trends starting at the hardware ( physical layer) level, and going all the way up to the software (applications layer), and user interface.

Hardware continues to decrease in size and increase in multimedia capabilities. 2D/3D graphics and video processors, multi-core, fast on-chip interfaces, together with low power designs are all must-have technologies to compete effectively.

From Today’s ubiquitous finger-pressure controlled interfaces we are already experiencing an evolution of the User Interface(UI) into a combination of finger, voice, movement, and gesture interfaces. Expect to see new input devices, screen sizes and UI engines supporting them.

Applications that add functionality to the devices that it is closest to the users’ location, to their social environment, to their entertainment, and to their healthy lifestyle needs are a big success in the market place. Presently location (via GPS, cell ID, etc.) is the biggest winner, and the trend is clear to sense other aspects of the user’s environment i.e., context. These context-aware applications and services will facilitate from applications ranging from e-commerce to bio-signal monitoring. We are already witnessing that these sensors benefit not only the products that incorporate them but a complete ecosystem with shorter time-to-market, reduced time-to-volume, added customers, etc. giving way to the emerging crowd sourcing business models, cloud computing, commercialization of user generated content and such.

The last – but not least – let’s look at communications because the technology most responsible for the innovations we discussed so far is communications including cellular (2G, 3G, 4G), WLAN, PAN, BAN, and IP. Ubiquitous content distribution models, service continuity, and seamless user experience regardless of the networking paradigms defined above is a must. Clearly the trend toward best connected, and the corollary of convergence and interoperability are the drives of activities in these space. Higher air interface throughput with more efficient modulation and coding, power-saving techniques and end-2-end quality of service are the most important aspects to watch.

Elena M. Neira
Core Team Member
Wireless Communications Engineering Technology
IEEE Communications Society

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